Cisplatin-based chemotherapy for the treatment of advanced transitional-cell carcinoma of the urinary tract - a preliminary report

The CMV (cisplatin, methotrexate, and vinblastine) and M-VAC (methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin) regimens were used to treat 19 patients with advanced transitional-cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urothelial tract. In the CMV group, the partial response rate was 45.5% and the mean response duration was 6.3 months. No complete response was obtained in our series. The median duration of survival was 15.8 and 8.3 months in responders and nonresponders, respectively. The toxic symptoms included one case of sepsis and three cases of renal toxicity. However, nausea and vomiting were experienced by most patients and required the administration of antiemetics. In the M-VAC group, the median duration of survival for responders was longer than that of nonresponders (>10.2 vs 7.2 months), although the number of patients was too small for this difference to reach statistical significance. The toxic symptoms included one case of sepsis, two cases of renal toxicity, and nausea and vomiting in most patients. Bone metastasis in three patients did not respond to chemotherapy (CMV), a finding that is compatible with the results reported by other investigators. In summary, chemotherapy with the CMV or M-VAC regimen was effective in improving the response rate of patients. However, the duration of response was short, toxicity was severe in some cases, and the efficacy against bone lesions was poor. These problems must be solved to improve the outcome of patients with TCC following chemotherapy with the CMV or M-VAC regimens.